156 CACTACEZ OF WHIPPLE’S EXPEDITION. 
sicca squamosa floris rndimentis coronata, seminibus oblique obovatis compressis sublucidis minutissime scrobiculatis, 
This gigantic species was first noticed by Dr. John L. Le Conte, on the lower Gila, where also Dr. C. C. Parry 
saw it. Both took it for the New Mexican EZ. Wislizeni, to which, indeed, it bears a great resemblance in habit as 
well as in botanical characters; but the seed that I received from the first-named gentleman at once satisfied me that 
I had a distinct species before me. Subsequently Dr. Bigelow met with this remarkable plant, abundantly, from the 
Cactus Pass, at the headwaters of Williams’s River, down this stream to the Colorado, and west of it till E. polycephalus 
took its place. — (Engelmann.) It grows on rocky or gravelly plains and ravines, and often in crevices of perpen- 
dicular rocks, to the height sometimes of 5 feet, by 2 feet in diameter. The ribs are somewhat interrupted by a 
transverse incision between the areolw. These areole in the specimen before us are 8 lines long by 4 wide, and [30] 
only } inch distant from one another. In some specimens of E. Wislizeni the same closeness is observed ; while 
in others, especially young and vigorously growing ones, they are often over 1 inch distant. The four principal central 
spines are 2-2} inches long; lateral ones more quadrangular ; the upper and lower ones flat and flexible, the former 
earinate above, the latter below. This lower one is rather the longest, and 15-1? lines broad, almost straight or some- 
what curved, but never (in the specimens brought home) hooked. The other spines are 13-2 inches, the lowest are 
only about 1 inch long. Five radial spines are arranged below the four central ones and three to five above, three of 
which are often pushed into the centre by the flexuous bristly spines which occupy the space between the upper and 
lower radial ones and the uppermost part of the areola. 
At the upper end of the areola, and between it and the floral areola, we meet with the same obtuse cylindric 
ligneous (when young, fleshy) glands which divide the spiniferous from the floral areole in several of our species of 
Echinocactus, 3-5 in number in the species before us, about 1 line long. 
We had the good fortune to collect a single specimen of the fruit (the only one found), which is globose, # inch 
in diameter, and, Lasse with the persistent remains of the flower, about 2 inches long. Dr. Le Conte has noticed 
“a crown of yellow fruits on the plant, about 2 or 2} inches long.” The dissection 6 the dead flower indicates a 
structure very similar to that of HZ. Wislizeni; petals apparently fleshy and narrow; stamina numerous, very few 
from the base, the majority from the middle and the upper thickened end of the short tube ; style 10 lines long, 
divided nearly down to the middle into fourteen sub-erect filiform stigmata ; seed black, oblique-obovate, compressed, 
carinate on lower part of back, somewhat shining, and very lightly pitted (under the glass), 0.8-0.9 line long ; hilum 
small, oval; albumen rather small ; embryo ovate, straight, with short hooked cotyledons. Mr. Schott has found this 
species abundantly in western Sonora and the Gadsden purchase. The flowers are yellow, and similar to those of 
E. Wislizeni, but rather smaller; the stems are generally much higher and thick, and of a clavate shape ; lower 
central spine sometimes almost hooked. 
Echinocactus Wislizeni is distinguished by the less flattened, less flexible, stouter spines, the lower central one 
being channelled above and strongly hooked ; by having only three lower radial spines, etc. The distinction indicated 
by the spines is confirmed by the shape and structure of the seeds ; and thus the plants of the Colorado and of the 
Rio Grande are distinct representatives of the same type on both sides of the Rocky Mountains. 
4. E. WIstizent, Engelm. in Wisliz. Rep. (Plate III. figs. 1-2). — plant is very abundant in the neighbor- 
hood of El Paso, where it was first found, many years ago, by Dr. Wislizen 
The fruit and seed of this plant were collected by Captain Whipple, i in — neighborhood of the Cereus gigantcus, 
while engaged in surveying the Gila, on the Boundary Commission, in 1852. There possibly may be some doubt 
about its growing in that region, however, from the fact that Captain Whipple’s fruits were labelled “ Cereus giganteus,” 
and were not collected by a botanist. 
In our present expedition, nic I first found a giant Echinocactus — E. LeContei — at Cactus Pass, I was sure, 
in common with Dr. Parry and Dr. Le Conte, that it was E. Wislizeni, which I had often seen before at Dofia Ana. 
I was most happy, however, in being able to secure even a single specimen of the frit and seeds of that plant, by 
s of which, with the spines I collected, it has been identified and confirmed by the acute observations of my 
fiend, Dr. Engelmann. It may be well to observe here, that the figure of this plant, in Major Emory’s Report, 
‘was a specimen seen on the headwaters of the Gila, near the mouth of the Azul branch, not far from 
eyes Rita del Cobre, or Copper Mines, and at least four degrees of longitude east of the place where I first met 
LeContei. 
. E. Emoryt, Engelm. in Emory’s Report, 1848: globosus, costis 13 tuberculatis, tuberculis prominenti- [31] 
bus obtusis distantibus ; areolis ovatis; aculeis subequalibus robustis annulatis subcompressis recurvatis 
rectiusculis fuscis versus apicem corneis, radialibus 7 (lateralibus 6, singulo inferiore breviore) s. addito summo 
rarius 8; centrali singulo teretiore paulo longiore robustioreque, porrecto s. demum deflexo curvato s. subuncinato- 
(Plate III. fig. 3.) 
Collected west of the Colorado, in the valley of the Mojave, mixed with E. polycephalus, and therefore not 
